“It would be pleasant.”
“You can do it.”
“By dropping asleep?”
“Sleep! That’s the time I’m most miserable. I remember the old days then, and my mother, and—I say, Jeffreys, I was once nearly drowned at Eton. Just as I was going down for the last time I put up my hand, and a fellow saw it and came in and fished me out. What a born fool I was to do it! I was grateful to the fellow at the time. I hate him now!”
And the poor fellow, with all the manhood out of him, cried himself to sleep; and Jeffreys in mercy said not a word to stop him.
A pitiful sort of friendship sprung up between the two—the bitter strong one, and the vicious weak one. It kept a soft corner in Jeffreys’ heart to find some one who held to him even in this degradation, and to the poor prodigal it was worth anything to have some one to talk to.
Coming home one wet morning from one of his nocturnal expeditions, Jeffreys found his fellow-lodger up, with a bottle in his hands.
“My boy, my boy,” cried the lad, “you’re in luck, and just in time. Who says I’m lost to all decency after this? Why, I might have hidden it away when I heard you coming up. No. There’s something of the nobleman left in me yet. Half of this is yours, Jeffreys; only help yourself quickly, man, or I may repent.”
He held out the bottle tremblingly and with a wince that spoke volumes.
“Take it. I never went halves before, and perhaps I never shall again.”